Justice Scalia, Asshole of the Day for December 16, 2014
While Dick Cheney has been leading the way on defending the Bush administration's torture program-- both in redefining torture and explaining how he thinks 9/11 means that all treaties and prior norms no longer matter-- someone thought to ask Justice Scalia about whether torture is constitutional.
Now you'd think the issue would be cut-and-dry. After all, the Constitution prohibits "cruel and unusual punishment". But Scalia has this to say:
“We have laws against torture,” Scalia replied. “The Constitution says nothing whatever about torture. It speaks of punishment; ‘cruel and unusual’ punishments are forbidden.”
“So torture is forbidden, in that case?” the host asked. “If it’s imposed as a punishment, yes,” Scalia responded. “If you condemn someone who has committed a crime to be tortured, that would be unconstitutional.”
You'll notice that Scalia is only talking about torture as punishment. So the interviewer asks about torture in interrogation, and Scalia is fine with that:
“We have never held that that’s contrary to the Constitution. And I don’t know what provision of the Constitution that would, that would contravene.
“Listen, I think it is very facile for people to say, ‘Oh, torture is terrible.’ You posit the situation where a person that you know for sure knows the location of a nuclear bomb that has been planted in Los Angeles and will kill millions of people. You think it’s an easy question? You think it’s clear that you cannot use extreme measures to get that information out of that person? I don’t think that’s so clear at all.
“And once again, it’s this sort of self-righteousness of European liberals who answer that question so readily and so easily. It’s not that easy a question.”
For Scalia then, torturing suspects is OK, but not if they are convicted of a crime. The fact that the suspect is considered, by the Constitution, to be innocent until proven guilty, doesn't matter. Somehow I doubt that the Founding Fathers would agree. So, for saying that convicts have more rights than suspects, Justice Scalia is the Asshole of the Day.
It is Justice Scalia's fourth time as Asshole of the Day. Previous wins were for
- refusing to consider evidence of innocence because it might be more work for him
- saying the Supreme Court can’t overturn acts of Congress when it comes to gay rights, when he himself overturned Congress’ Voting Rights Act the day before
- saying the Constitution allows the government to favor religion over atheism
Full story: Maddow Blog